Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 2 | Page 2

the baffled Fiend as
his sounding wing goes by!
1830.

THE MERRIMAC.
"The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south, which they call
Merrimac."--SIEUR. DE MONTS, 1604.
Stream of my fathers! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill;

Poured slantwise down the long defile,
Wave, wood, and spire
beneath them smile.
I see the winding Powow fold
The green hill in
its belt of gold,
And following down its wavy line,
Its sparkling
waters blend with thine.
There 's not a tree upon thy side,
Nor rock,
which thy returning tide
As yet hath left abrupt and stark
Above thy
evening water-mark;
No calm cove with its rocky hem,
No isle
whose emerald swells begin
Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail

Bowed to the freshening ocean gale;
No small boat with its busy oars,

Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores;
Nor farm-house with its maple
shade,
Or rigid poplar colonnade,
But lies distinct and full in sight,

Beneath this gush of sunset light.
Centuries ago, that harbor-bar,

Stretching its length of foam afar,
And Salisbury's beach of shining
sand,
And yonder island's wave-smoothed strand,
Saw the
adventurer's tiny sail,
Flit, stooping from the eastern gale;
And o'er
these woods and waters broke
The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak,

As brightly on the voyager's eye,
Weary of forest, sea, and sky,

Breaking the dull continuous wood,
The Merrimac rolled down his
flood;
Mingling that clear pellucid brook,
Which channels vast
Agioochook
When spring-time's sun and shower unlock
The frozen
fountains of the rock,
And more abundant waters given
From that
pure lake, "The Smile of Heaven,"
Tributes from vale and
mountain-side,--

With ocean's dark, eternal tide!
On yonder rocky cape, which braves
The stormy challenge of the
waves,
Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood,
The hardy
Anglo-Saxon stood,
Planting upon the topmost crag
The staff of
England's battle-flag;
And, while from out its heavy fold
Saint
George's crimson cross unrolled,
Midst roll of drum and trumpet

blare,
And weapons brandishing in air,
He gave to that lone
promontory
The sweetest name in all his story;
Of her, the flower
of Islam's daughters,
Whose harems look on Stamboul's waters,--

Who, when the chance of war had bound
The Moslem chain his limbs
around,
Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain,
Soothed with her
smiles his hours of pain,
And fondly to her youthful slave
A dearer
gift than freedom gave.
But look! the yellow light no more
Streams down on wave and
verdant shore;
And clearly on the calm air swells
The twilight voice
of distant bells.
From Ocean's bosom, white and thin,
The mists
come slowly rolling in;
Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim,
Amidst
the sea--like vapor swim,
While yonder lonely coast-light, set

Within its wave-washed minaret,
Half quenched, a beamless star and
pale,
Shines dimly through its cloudy veil!
Home of my fathers!--I have stood
Where Hudson rolled his lordly
flood
Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade
Along his frowning Palisade;

Looked down the Appalachian peak
On Juniata's silver streak;

Have seen along his valley gleam
The Mohawk's softly winding
stream;
The level light of sunset shine
Through broad Potomac's
hem of pine;
And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner
Hang lightly o'er
the Susquehanna;
Yet wheresoe'er his step might be,
Thy
wandering child looked back to thee!
Heard in his dreams thy river's
sound
Of murmuring on its pebbly bound,
The unforgotten swell
and roar
Of waves on thy familiar shore;
And saw, amidst the
curtained gloom

And quiet of his lonely room,
Thy sunset scenes
before him pass;
As, in Agrippa's magic glass,
The loved and lost
arose to view,
Remembered groves in greenness grew,
Bathed still
in childhood's morning dew,
Along whose bowers of beauty swept

Whatever Memory's mourners wept,
Sweet faces, which the charnel
kept,
Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept;
And while the
gazer leaned to trace,
More near, some dear familiar face,
He wept

to find the vision flown,--
A phantom and a dream alone!
1841.
HAMPTON BEACH
The sunlight glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,
Lies
stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,

Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.
The tremulous shadow of the Sea!
Against its ground
Of silvery
light, rock, hill, and tree,
Still as a picture, clear and free,
With
varying outline mark the coast for miles around.
On--on--we tread with loose-flung rein
Our seaward way,
Through
dark-green fields and blossoming grain,
Where the wild brier-rose
skirts the lane,
And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.
Ha! like a kind hand on my brow
Comes this fresh breeze,
Cooling
its dull and feverish glow,
While through my being seems to flow

The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!
Now rest we, where this grassy mound
His feet hath set
In the great
waters, which have bound
His granite ankles greenly round
With
long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.
Good-by to Pain and Care! I take
Mine ease to-day
Here where
these sunny waters break,
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
All
burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.
I draw a freer breath, I seem
Like all I see--
Waves in the sun, the
white-winged gleam
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam,
And far-off
sails which flit before the south-wind free.
So when Time's veil shall fall asunder,
The soul may know
No
fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery
under,
But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.

And all we shrink from now may seem
No new